Airline alliances aren't new to ASAP; Horst Findeisen, vice president of business development at Star Alliance, gave a presentation at the 2009 ASAP Global Alliance Summit. Aside from the "big three" airline alliancesv—Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and Oneworld—alliances between individual airlines are likewise not uncommon.

With that said, with the rise of emerging markets in EMEA and Asia-Pac, it will be interesting to see if the multilateral alliances will be the most efficient way to serve these markets. Qantas and Emirates have found that a bilateral alliance is enough to open up markets without increasing costs. The bet here is that it is also more efficient from an operational standpoint, too.